Leaky Gut Syndrome… The Disease Your Doctor Can’t Diagnose?

“Leaky Gut” sounds pretty weird right? I’ll never forget the first time I heard the term back when I was struggling with chronic diarrhea and low energy…

The first thing that popped in my mind was, “Ewwww, does that mean my poop is leaking into my body?”

Now that I’ve spent years understanding this condition… the funny thing is that’s not too far from the truth. But the thing that worries me the most about this condition is that it’s a growing epidemic that most people don’t even know they’re suffering from.

It can masquerade as fatigue, anxiety, depression, digestive symptoms, weight problems, and other serious conditions…

And even with all the latest technology and over 10,000+ research papers on it, this hidden epidemic is still often referred to as the “Disease Your Doctor Can’t Diagnose…”

If you or loved ones are struggling with chronic illness, like my family and I did, this might be the most important thing you’ll ever read.

Soooo, What Is Leaky Gut Anyways?

What it does to you is this: it allows TOXIC food particles, environmental chemicals, and bacterial waste to leak through your digestive tract and into your body – once inside, these foreign particles travel to different areas of your body and trigger an immune response, promoting inflammation and jump-starting the development of chronic disease.

Instead of keeping the bad stuff out, the delicate lining of your intestine is letting all the bad stuff in, and your body is breaking down from the inside out. The real name of this hidden epidemic is: Increased Intestinal Permeability, or “Leaky Gut.”

So yes, in some REALLY general ways you can think about it like your poop is leaking into your body…

But that’s not the scariest thing about it.

Because Untreated Leaky Gut Is Making TONS of People Sick

Here’s a short list of conditions associated with “Leaky Gut:”

Infertility

Type 1 diabetes

Multiple sclerosis

Rheumatoid arthritis

Lupus

Vitiligo

Narcolepsy

Schizophrenia

Autism

Depression

Huntington’s

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Hypothyroidism

Porphyria

In fact, now you can put just about any condition into Google along with “Intestinal Permeability” and find hours of research papers associating the two.

Here’s a few examples for those of you who are nerds like me (the link will open a Google search in a new window):

Then there’s Dr. Alessio Fasano’s groundbreaking “Leaky Gut Theory of Autoimmunity” – which suggests that the 100+ Autoimmune Diseases begin with leaky gut. With over 10,000+ published research papers on intestinal permeability, you’d think modern medicine would be talking about it more, but they’re not. If you ask the average doctor, very few have heard about it and those that have still think it’s “quackery.”

How Do You Know If a Leaky Gut Is Making You Sick?

Leaky gut is a tricky condition. It can show up in every human being in a different way…

It’s not obvious. In fact, only 70% of people with leaky gut have digestive problems. You can even find it in people that “look” healthy.

To put it simply: if you’re struggling with chronic health complaints, you’re at risk for leaky gut.

As you can see in the research above, gut health is important for just about every system in the body, and in turn, it can create symptoms and problems in just about every system in the body. So, how do you know if you have it?

There are two common ways to test for Leaky Gut:

The Lactulose-mannitol intestinal permeability test

Cyrex Labs “Array #2”

Both tests have their benefits. For example, the Lactulose-mannitol test is commonly used as the gold standard in research settings. The Cyrex panel is possibly a better option to measure the immune response from leaky gut, but both of these tests have inherent unreliability.

It’s like Chris Kresser always says, “Will the test result change the outcome of the treatment?”

In the case of testing for leaky gut, not necessarily. Personally, I think you can save money by instead focusing on your risk factors for leaky gut, which is why we put together a leaky gut risk analysis in this free leaky gut quiz.

Of course, an interactive quiz like this can’t diagnosis anything, but it can help you screen for the most important leaky gut risk factors in your life. Education is the best prevention and with this quiz, instead of knowing whether or not you have leaky gut, knowing WHAT risk factors are damaging your gut can help you take the next steps to start fixing it.

How to Stop Your Guts From Leaking

There are three really common leaky gut triggers I’ve seen over the years when people are still struggling with chronic health problems. The first step in preventing your gut from leaking is to start turning off some of these common triggers.

If that’s you, there’s a good chance you’re dealing with leaky gut and these three mistakes could be making things worse for you.

Leaky Gut Trigger 1: Eating Holes in Your Gut

If you have leaky gut and you’re still struggling with chronic illness, the 80/20 rule doesn’t fly. Eat gluten on the weekends? Stop it. Occasional beer on a hot day? Stop it. The research is very clear that gluten contributes to leaky gut and when it comes to dealing with serious health problems, there’s no room for a “Cheat Day.”

I get it. I understand it has its place… for healthy people. One day you too might be able to live a happy healthy life with 80/20 healthy eating. But not today.

With leaky gut, there are un-digested food particles sneaking right into your bloodstream, which causes the immune system to attack them as foreign invaders. That starts a cascade of inflammation. The autoimmune protocol removes many of the most problematic foods for people with leaky gut, things like eggs, tomatoes & eggplants, peppers including bell peppers and hot peppers, spices such as curries, paprika, and chili powder, and nuts and seeds.

For the majority of us, if we just remove certain classes of foods that are harder to digest, we can begin to reverse leaky gut and hopefully get some relief in the process.

Leaky Gut Trigger 2: Poking Holes in Your Gut with Pills

Who hasn’t reached for an Advil or Motrin in times of pain? I used to get 2-3 headaches a week and carried them around in my wallet. Then, there’s all those aches and pains that follow you home from sports and the gym – those mornings when you wake up and your body is locked up and screaming at you.

If you take NSAIDS, especially the stronger kind that are used to treat autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, you’ll be putting your gut barrier at risk. Immediately talk with your primary care doctor to explore other solutions.

Leaky Gut Trigger 3: Cortisol Rips Your Gut Apart

If we discovered that sleeping more and reducing our stress would make us live forever, I think we’d all still die. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing from Robb and everyone else telling you that you need to get 8 hours of sleep and take a breath, so let’s not beat a dead horse. But here’s the problem: not many people ACTUALLY do it. I’ve struggled with it too and it’s still a focus of mine.

But when you’re sick, it’s the same as the 80/20 diet rule… there’s no room for stress and sleep deprivation if you want to keep your poop where it belongs.

Studies like this are very clear that stress wrecks your gut and makes it leaky. You WILL NOT heal your gut if it’s experiencing chronic stress. Think about it like having a broken bone… we put it in a cast for a reason, so it stays protected and can heal.

But here’s the rub: sometimes stress isn’t what you think. Sure, stress can be emotional, like a crappy job or a bad relationship. But it can also be physical stress, like overtraining. Working out too hard can be extremely stressful on your body if you’re struggling with chronic illness.

If you’re still sick and training for that half marathon, stop for a while.

There’s another hidden stressor we’ve seen in about 80% of our consulting clients: gut infections. Those parasite and bacterial infections are a constant stressor on your body, sometimes just as powerful as guzzling gluten flavored shakes every day.

So, if you’re still sick and haven’t had a stool test yet, do it. I know, pooping in a plastic tube doesn’t sound like a party, but trust me it’s way better than letting a nasty infection live on in your body.

How to Fix Leaky Gut

Rome wasn’t built in a day… and it wasn’t destroyed in a day either.

Your gut isn’t going to heal in a day. If you’re already on a ‘real food diet,’ avoiding NSAIDs, and reducing your stress… but still suspect your poop isn’t staying where it belongs, there’s more work to do.

Like I said, many of us are “tough cases” and we need more than just a healthy diet to heal. Complex problems rarely ever have simple answers. But as humans we like simple ideas, single causes, magic pills and smoking guns. When it comes to leaky gut, there are at least 19 common triggers in the research that can be contributing to your problems.

We cover these triggers and how to fix leaky gut in a free webcast about how to solve leaky gut and reverse chronic illness.

Is Your Body Secretly Suffering from a Leaky Gut?

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About the author

Jordan Reasoner is a health engineer and author. He was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2007 and almost gave up hope when a gluten-free diet didn’t work. Since then, he transformed his health using the SCD Diet and started SCDLifestyle.com to help others naturally heal stomach problems. You can check out his story here and find him on Google+, Facebook or Twitter.

I have done a lot of research on Leaky Gut, as I have been struggling for many years with gut issues. I love the information in this post regarding stress. One of the biggest obstacles for me was learning to manage my stress and doing things like meditation, yoga, prayer, and being present in each moment. I can’t tell you how much this helped me!

Have any of you heard of a new product called Restore? I just ordered it from restore4life.com. Im not advertising or advocating this product. I really want to know if anyone else has tried it. Here Is a quote from the website:
“It is important for people to know that RESTORE produces a medically significant outcome. My patients, who use the product every day, get better. Rather than treating specific diseases, I use RESTORE to allow our immune system to prevent them in the first place.”

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